


HMS Bordello

by alltoseek



Category: Aubrey-Maturin Series - Patrick O'Brian
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-15
Updated: 2012-10-15
Packaged: 2017-11-16 08:44:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/537615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alltoseek/pseuds/alltoseek
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The rescue of numerous young women from a pirate vessel has the predictable consequences - and some unexpected ones.</p>
            </blockquote>





	HMS Bordello

Captain Aubrey fumed silently over his morning coffee in the great cabin. He had always prided himself on being able to handle any contingency that came up at sea; regardless of how often he was brought by the lee on land. But this situation was impossible - women, damned women! He always hated having women on board - always caused trouble - they simply did not belong! Jack could handle any naval situation, he felt, except a ship overrun with young women.

Jack longed for someone to talk to, to open his mind. His mind often worked out his problems while he talked them over; especially with Stephen, even when Stephen did nothing but listen. In this case, however, Stephen was no use whatsoever. Jack darted a glare at him; more truthfully the glare landed, unnoticed and untroubling, on the gaggle of girls surrounding him. Stephen's small spare form was almost completely obscured. They cooed and ooh'ed over his scarred hands and feet. And Stephen - Stephen who hated pity - intolerant of any expression of sympathy - Stephen just murmured and shushed in response to the girls' soft cries of "Oh you poor thing," and "How awful - I'm so so sorry," and "Does it still hurt - does this make it feel better?"

At yet another absurd unnecessary lurch of the ship, which told him that the helmsman had once more been distracted, Jack slammed his coffee down. One of the girls turned toward him, moving timidly his way, but one look at his wicked face as he rose to leave the cabin had her quickly backing away again.

Up on deck Jack remembered why he had retreated to the cabin. Girls were everywhere - at least one or two to every officer, man, and boy. And no one was more attentive to his duty than to the women at his side. Bonden at the helm had encircled one, standing behind her and guiding her hands on the spokes as he "demonstrated" how to steer. Two more stood on either side, awaiting their turn. Joe Plaice was showing a small group a variety of intricate knots, whilst the lines he was supposed to be splicing lay neglected beside him. A boy was demonstrating with a flourish how quickly he could flemish a slab line; unfortunately, he flemished the same one over and over whilst others lay loose and tangled all about the deck. Even the marine by the glass had let it run out whilst flirting. When his attention could be brought to it, he turned the glass and struck the bell; then struck the bell a few more times as the young woman gushed about "how pretty it sounded; how elegantly he rang it."

And the officers were worse, if possible. Pullings walked up and down the quarterdeck arm in arm with two young ladies - one on each arm, neglecting to vacate the windward side for him; Mowett hung by the rail, whispering poetry and staring soulfully into some pretty young thing's eyes; Honey looked out with his girl over the beautiful Mediterranean sea. They looked everywhere, that is, except at the sails, which were in a disreputable state, and at the men, neglecting their duty as officers as much the men neglected their work.

Jack opened his mouth to bawl out orders, but quickly shut it again at the humiliating prospect of being completely ignored. At best, one or two men, the closest, might jump to do something, but a half-dozen orders given in rapid fire, so effective in the well-disciplined ship he was used to, would cause only confusion as too few men responded to carry too few of them out. 

Earlier he had tried flogging as way to bring the men's attention back to their duty; but that remedy rebounded on him in a most disgusting way. The bosun's mate, exhausted and happy from the recent labours of his watch below, had no strength and less will to swing the cat. The "victim" received no more than a slight reddening of the skin from the dozen strokes, but the girls - horrified by the first flogging they'd ever witnessed - cried piteously over him, offering with their own hands to rub a soothing balm into his skin. The rest of the defaulters jostled each other to be the next "punished", and soon men who weren't even on the defaulters' list joined in the fray. If the captain hadn't called a halt to further flogging, there would have been a riot. Instead he stopped all grog, all spirits of any kind for the whole ship. At that there was silence, and widening of the eyes, and grimly Jack smiled, thinking he'd made his point.

He was soon disabused. "Just as well grog's been stopped," he overheard Plaice tell Bonden. "Spirits'll keep a man from rising to the occasion, as you might say." 

Now Jack was faced with the command of a ship that might very well be the first in Royal Navy history to founder in a mild one-foot swell in a steady topsail breeze. Girls were all very well, he thought; God knew he loved a wench himself, had one in his cot himself last night, no reason not to, off-duty and a willing girl. But the ship came first! How anyone could hang on the lips of some possibly pretty but certainly ignorant girl instead of sailing a perfectly gorgeous ship on a perfectly gorgeous day he could not begin to fathom.

So Jack found himself physically grabbing a man, hauling him to a task and setting him to it while he watched the man start on it. For tasks requiring more than one man, he selected an officer, detached the woman from him and together they would set off to do the same with the seamen they needed. It took several bells (he reminded himself to check the glass periodically), and re-checking the work he'd already started someone on, but he managed to get the sails trimmed properly and some sort of order established on deck. Unless he could get some semblance of discipline back, at least in his officers, it looked to be a long exhausting journey.

The Captain ran up the rigging of each of the masts, chasing the girls down from the tops. "No women in the tops!" he ordered. "The heights are not safe for them." Making it an issue of the women's safety would encourage the men to enforce it, he hoped. "No women on the quarterdeck" was the next directive. This earned him many reproachful glances, but after he sent both Honey and Maitland to mastheads, this order won obedience as well. As he feared, it also cleared the quarterdeck of all except the officer and mate of the watch. However, these two, deprived of feminine company, were determined likewise to deprive all others they could fix with their glaring eyes. At least that kept the glass and helm properly tended.

With the bare minimum of ship's discipline restored, Jack turned his mind to the problem of bringing the men back to _willing_ obedience. Gun practice! Of course. Under these fine conditions it would be easy to haul out some targets. Nothing like blasting objects to smithereens to restore the proper tone to men's minds. And the women would be sent belowdecks for the duration, of course.

When he told Pullings of his order for gun practice that afternoon, the lieutenant seemed taken aback. "We're in good practice now, sir. And who would attack a ship full of ladies?" Jack nearly gaped at him, astonished that Pullings would even think to question his captain's orders. And had Tom already forgotten why all these ladies were aboard? They had taken them from the water when they sunk the pirate they were in. The pirate had been terrorising these waters, attacking any vessel carrying young or passably good-looking women. Jack had tried to take it without sinking it - possibly drowning the delicate cargo, but the pirate maneouvered too quickly for boarding and fought too bitterly to surrender, finally going down with all hands. Jack, the officers and men had had enough warning, and with one mind they manned the boats, swimmers (including the captain) diving directly in to rescue as many as possible. Oddly enough, whilst all the women seemed to have been retrieved, not one pirate was saved.

Some of this must have shown on Jack's face, for Pullings immediately recollected himself, replaced the love-silly expression on his face with the more natural wooden professionalism and said, "Aye-aye, sir."

Gun practice did not go quite so well as Jack had hoped, but it would do he supposed. The beginning was marked with much grumbling lethargy. Jack raged at them, saying that if they'd been "this God-damned lubberly when they attacked the pirate, there wouldn't be any God-damned girls aboard to worry them now." And if they didn't "show a God-damned glim now, the next Dutch-built bugger with a pop-gun was likely to take the God-damned girls off their hands." This got the men's attention somewhat, but even more so the girls that had begun to creep up and hide in the corners, excited to watch the guns go off. Jack saw the improvement in the teams that heard the most cheering, and he decided to allow all the girls up. They packed the quarterdeck and the bow, the guns in those areas housed. The roar from the women's cheers as the targets exploded was as loud as a broadside and lifted even Jack's spirits. Practice ended with respectable timing and aim. Jack just wished that the achievement hadn't _required_ the presence of the girls.

The next morning saw Jack in continued good humour. He and Stephen had given an impromptu concert, and although much of the music may have been lost on gun-deafened ears, the ladies' good-natured appreciation was not lost on Jack. Neither was the pleasant interlude spent that night in his sleeping-cabin with his companion, even more enjoyable now that she was learning his particular desires.

With his first cup of coffee and a biscuit he came warily up on deck. As he looked to the sky and the sails his apprehension left him and he cheerfully mounted to the now entirely masculine domain of the quarterdeck. Even the officers on watch could be cheerful, for although it had been a lonelier night than they could have wished, they had much to look forward to during their watch below.

The day passed calmly enough. In the first days after the sinking of the pirate ship, the women had generally stayed below, recovering from their ordeal of captivity, their near drowning, and in some cases wounds received during one battle or another. Undistracted, the men had been able to focus on repairing the damage to the ship and rigging; although indeed Stephen and his assistants were initially run ragged. Willing help was not hard to fine, however; and the women soon recovered their spirits as they found themselves treated quite respectfully by the Navy - not something they had expected. Very little was spoken between the seamen and the women, as few of the men knew any lingua franca of the region, and fewer women knew any English, but the women knew how to express their gratitude and appreciation in other ways, and did not hesitate to do so.

Now Jack watched as his men returned the girls' newly-discovered interest in gunnery by demonstrating as much as they could of how the guns worked. They showed the rammers and swabs, using pantomime to demonstrate how they worked. The women peered down the priming-hole, tried maneuvering the handspikes and lifting the shot. Jack looked askance at all this unproductive activity, but as it was nothing compared to the pitiful show of yesterday he let it pass.

The next few days passed with a new regularity. During the day, the men continued to feed the girls' curiosity regarding the guns, and in the evening there was live firing with loud cheering. Sometimes Jack had the girls in the waist, to allow the working of the bow guns and those on the quarterdeck. Or the girls lined up along the starboard rail while the larboard guns were worked. The women showed as much enthusiasm for the small-arms practice as well - perhaps more, for whenever she could, a girl would wheedle a Marine or topman into letting her hold and aim the musket or pistol, always unloaded, of course. But they watched the charging, priming, and loading avidly regardless.

The wind, weather, and women had their mellowing effect on Jack; until a sail was sighted to windward. The hungry look returned to his eye and he ran up to the masthead with his glass. What he saw convinced him to bear up toward it. He couldn't be sure from this distance, but he suspected another of the pirates that infested these waters. A day of wearying chase followed, tack upon tack to gain upon the unknown vessel. As it grew closer Jack became more convinced of his suspicion; the other was running as fast as it could, which would have been plenty fast enough, except that clearly it had been mauled not too long ago, and was still hampered in its flight.

All eyes focused on the chase, the hail of another sail sighted on the starboard beam came later than it should have. Another fast xebec, and this one was neither injured nor running. The lookout, newly chastened and alert, soon called out another sail, this on the larboard bow. And just as Jack verified that this too was another xebec headed directly for them, the original chase, suddenly fully functional, wore to bear down upon them.

Up at the masthead, tracking all three vessels as they converged upon him, Jack considered his options. Even the three xebecs together hardly out-gunned the ship, but they were much more maneouverable, and if all three engaged him at once, at least one could probably contrive to cross his bow or stern and rake him. Grape could cut up the men and the rigging severely. It was also likely that the three combined carried many more men than he did, and if they contrived to board, things could get ugly indeed. On the other hand, his guns reached much farther than theirs, so for as long as he could keep his distance, with the gun-crews so well worked-up he could potentially batter them severely without the ship receiving so much as a scratch. However, they had the weather-gauge and nightfall was coming soon. Jack reached out for a backstay and slid down to the deck. "Mr. Pullings, we will wear ship, if you please." He would run with the wind right aft, letting the three come up within long range and do what damage he could until darkness put a stop to gunnery. In the dark he would turn aside, keep from being surrounded.

He was concerned that his lack of men prevented him from being able to fight both sides at once. It would be a challenge even to man one broadside and work the sails at the same time. However, he was not worried about the ultimate outcome, and he was eager for the engagement. Removing three of these devils at once was much more satisfactory that having to chase 'em all over the sea.

The women had been sent below when the ship cleared for action at the sight of the first sail. They would keep sneaking back up, throughout the long tedious day, getting underfoot when all hands were called again to put the ship about. He decided now to let them up. Perhaps the sight of cannon flying in earnest would them scurrying back below. Once the pirates got close enough to fire upon them in earnest, the girls would have to go below again. "Perhaps with a knife or cutlass apiece," he reflected. "Let the poor things defend themselves if we're so unlucky as to get boarded."

The women were properly sedate and awed at the guns firing on the chases. Occasionally Jack yawed, to let fly a full broadside, but this let the following vessels come up too quickly, and accuracy at this distance was not adequate to do damage enough to justify it. Mostly just the stern chasers were in action. The girls cheered at each shot that struck, but as Jack feared, the xebecs were packed with men, and every stay that parted was quickly replaced, and every shot in the hull plugged.

Night fell with its usual suddenness just as the pirates began trying the range with their guns. In the full dark Jack turned as planned. Unfortunately the moon was up quickly in the cloudless sky, and the sharp-eyed pirates followed with hardly a loss of distance. Jack gritted his teeth and ordered the boarding netting reinforced and battle lanterns lit. If the pirates came up close enough, he'd be able to fire on them, dark or no dark.

Despite the captain's best efforts, the faster and more maneouverable vessels soon ranged up on either side, with one hanging back astern. Jack closed within pistol shot to the one to windward. He planned to work that side, constantly pushing that pirate away while the others had to beat up to follow them. He ordered the guns loaded with grape, to reduce the number of potential boarders.

The battle descended into its usual chaos. Smoke obscured what little the moonlight could reveal. Shot was coming aboard them from three directions. Jack abandoned his maneouvering, directing the men to work both sides as best they could. As he expected, there seemed no end to the men aboard the pirates, no matter how often they were raked with the grape. What surprised him was that his own ship seemed to be working the guns on both sides much more effectively than he had anticipated, even though he'd seen numerous casualties go below, and even a few bodies slipped over the side.

A quick walk along the deck forward revealed why - there were women assisting in working the guns! Those blasted girls had snuck up again, dressed practically in sailor's slops. They were handing powder and shot; they were swabbing and ramming; even heaving on the train tackles. Jack had half a mind to order them all back below - he saw several injured, some dragged down below, and whilst he watched one was killed. But in working the guns they were too nimble and efficient - amazingly so, except in hauling on the tackles. They hauled with a will, but they did not have the strength - it took at least two women to fill one man's place (fortunately they were typically slim enough to do so), and even then running out the gun was slower. But he'd never seen swabbing, loading, ramming done so neatly, so quickly. Like a graceful dance. He needed all the hands he had just now; and he doubted he could enforce the order to go below anyway, seeing how the gun captains were not already shooing away the girls. And damn their eyes, if they were willing to risk their lives to defend their virtue, who was he to stop them?

Boarders attempting to come over the stern caused him to forget the women entirely as he ran back and called men away from the after-most guns to repel them. As soon as one set was pushed back, another would be found in another part of the ship, and soon Jack was running back and forth the length of the ship.

A few parties of boarders made it on to the ship, only to find themselves encircled by men - well, mostly men. The women who fought hand-to-hand against the boarders made up in viciousness what they lacked in skill and strength. This may have demoralised the attackers, as Jack watched some jump back to their vessel, terrified by the sight of women wielding cutlasses, knives, and pistols.

When Jack saw one vessel pull away, giving up boarding, he ordered the guns on that side to switch back to shot - double-shotted - for the short time they could be fired accurately in the dark. Soon the others pulled away also, and the ship was firing shot in three directions. Jack had the pleasure of watching one sink, and ordered the chase of the one remaining that was in the worst condition. Sinking that one did not take long either; however, the third had already run too far away. He set course for his best guess at their direction; and had his officers and men turn their attention to the worst part of battle - cleaning up the mess.

The carnage on deck was bad enough. Jack forced himself to the sickbay.

"Nineteen killed. Forty-six wounded. It is too early to say for certain, but with the blessing they may survive."

Jack nodded. "How many were women?"

"Three women killed; a dozen wounded."

"They fought like heroes, Stephen. Like heroes."

"Sure. They have been working hard down here, too." Stephen motioned to the women tending the injured. Jack had noticed in some part of his mind that the sick bay was much quieter than usual after battle; now he saw that each of the hurt had a girl tending him (or her). No need to moan and groan so loudly for attention when someone was already wiping your brow, or giving you water, or arranging your blanket.

Jack thought he ought to feel more pleased - two pirates sunk, one run off with its tail between its legs; the ship intact (more or less). The post-battle depression was already upon him. Nineteen hammocks for the ceremony tomorrow. God knows how many in the days after that. And an unreasonable part of his mind refused to be consoled for the loss of the three women by the saving of all their sisters.

In his sleeping cabin his companion was sitting on the cot, looking at him shyly. He paused a moment, then lay down, his face in her lap, and let the tears come.

***

The captain no longer damned the women, even in his own mind. The ship fell into a routine, a soothing regularity, even with their presence. Even so, he was very happy when the last of the girls finally disembarked: tearful goodbyes, hasty marriages, and all. Now the ship and the men could get back to normal.

The wounded well on the way to mending, no cooing girls to lure him away, Stephen joined Jack for an extended session of music in the cabin.

In the forepeak, Honey and Maitland were consoling each other for the loss of their sweethearts with fervent, passionate kisses.

In the berth-deck, the men's hammocks remained hung quite close together, although with the women gone there was plenty of space to spread out. Looking closely at the nearly-invisible gaps between them, one could see hands wandering across chests, down bellies, caressing the most intimate places...

In the gunroom, Mowett and Rowan held a contest: who could recite his poetry the longest while having his prick sucked vigourously by the other. Rowan claimed the win, but Mowett argued that the insertion of fingers into the arse was not allowed under the rules.

In the great cabin, the instruments set aside, Jack lay on his belly, Stephen atop him, hands intertwined. Girls were all very well, in their way, Jack reflected, but for a really good fuck, he would pick Stephen over anyone, any time.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a [prompt](http://perfect-duet.livejournal.com/366256.html?thread=4269744#t4269744) from [perfect_duet](http://perfect-duet.livejournal.com)'s [2010 Anything Goes meme](http://perfect-duet.livejournal.com/366256.html): _THIS IS A SHIP OF HIS MAJESTY'S NAVY: A FLOATING BORDELLO. Massive shipwide orgy! Yes!_


End file.
